Nightmare
by IronHeartWriter
Summary: Selina wakes up in the middle of the night after a nightmare and realizes just how close she is to losing the one person she needs most. Possible oneshot.


**AN: Welcome to my first Batman fic in I believe five years... Jeeze. Anyway, this may be only a oneshot, or part of something larger. We shall see. For now, enjoy, and as always, I own nothing.**

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Selina twisted hard before feeling her backside come in contact with something both hard and icy cold. Her eyes shot open as she realized, with a groan, that she was on the marble floor of the bedroom in the house where she was currently living with Bruce. The bastard. If it wasn't for him, she wouldn't be having these nightmares. She sat up, moving her fingers through her hair as she looked around. The first thing she saw was a pair of mildly amused green eyes watching her carefully. She narrowed her own dark eyes at his before she leaned against the bed from her spot on the floor.

Bruce watched Selina carefully. He knew that look all too well. The way her dark as night orbs narrowed was often very dangerous, especially when you were on the receiving end of that look. He propped himself up on his elbow, "Are you going to sit there glaring at me the rest of the night, or are you going to come back into bed and tell me what's wrong?" He looked over his shoulder at the alarm clock. It was just after three in the morning, right on schedule. One of them usually woke the other up around three in the morning each night for various reasons, be it falling out of bed, thrashing, even talking in their sleep.

"I swear, you could set that clock by both of us," Selina grumbled as she reluctantly got to her feet. The marble floor was truly freezing. Bruce always had the house cold at night for some reason that was beyond Selina's comprehension. She zipped her hoodie up slightly and slid back into bed beneath the down comforter, and though she specifically put some space between herself and Bruce, his hand almost instantly reached out to pull her closer. Her body went rigid and Bruce sighed.

"Selina…."

Selina turned her glare back on Bruce as she looked over her shoulder at him. This was all his fault. Before he'd decided to be all noble and fake his death, the only nightmares she had to deal with were the ones of her mother committing suicide. Oh, and there was occasionally a specific loud crack that echoed through her dreams every now and then, but since that last fight in Gotham, all she saw in her mind were explosions and the thoughts of everything that she hadn't said to Bruce before then.

It had taken him six months to find her after that day. Six months had been more than enough for Selina to lose all sense of everything she had thought she knew. She'd used the Clean Slate program as soon as she got back to her Old Town walkup. After spending a few days getting everything that she could together, she left to New York City where she started her new life. For the first time in her life, she felt like she had known true misery. Bruce was gone, declared dead. He'd given them everything. He'd made good on his word; he gave the people of Gotham _everything_. Everyone was celebrating the return to normalcy, while she was suffering. She couldn't eat, she couldn't sleep. Her clothes all started to hang on her frame, and in a corner of her mind she remembered what Bruce had looked like the first time that she'd met him and she wondered if she didn't appear to be in a similar state.

The day he'd found her had been another bad one. She had forced herself to go through a run through Central Park, which wasn't too far from the apartment she was renting in the Upper West Side of New York City. Her body felt weak, but she just needed to get out of the apartment that was starting to feel more like a cage than anything. She decided to sit by the lake and take a short break, when her skin started to crawl. She felt like she was being watched. Sure enough, when she had looked around, there was someone sitting on a bench nearby, a hat pulled low over his eyes, but Selina could tell he was watching her by his posture. She'd gotten to her feet, her eyes blazing as she approached the man, "Got a problem?" She hissed through her teeth.

The man said nothing but shook his head. Selina rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms over her chest. She _so_ wasn't in the mood for bullshit. She turned on the man and looked to her left and to her right deciding where to go. Behind her, the man cleared his throat, shifting slightly as though he were suddenly uncomfortable, "You really don't want to mess with me, pal, if that's what's on your mind right now," Selina advised the guy, glancing over her shoulder at him. It was then that she noticed the green eyes watching her.

Those eyes had been watching her, very much like they were watching her at that moment in the present time, in their bed in Florence, Italy. Selina remembered beating the shit out of Bruce that afternoon, and she remembered him just taking it from her, never attempting to stop her, nor attempting to hit her back. From that point, it had taken another three months of him pursuing her, trying to talk to her, to just get a true conversation with her. When finally she did give in, she broke down crying and Bruce finally realized what his actions had cost her. He was hardly the only one who lost everything that day in Gotham. But whatever she felt, after that one time she broke down in front of him, she never did it again.

A further three months later, making it almost a year since that day in Gotham, Bruce had suggested going abroad, if only for a few weeks. In those three months that they spent together in New York, some things had changed between them though. Selina rarely let Bruce out of her sight, though she didn't say much, nor give much indication of any true emotion, despite the fact that unless he was in bed with her every night, she wouldn't sleep. Affection definitely wasn't her thing, and if she even felt some sort of tender feelings towards him, Bruce couldn't blame her for always keeping him at an arm's length after what he had unintentionally put her through.

Both of them seemed to snap back to reality as Bruce finally touched Selina's shoulder, squeezing it gently. They weren't in Gotham, they weren't in New York, but it seemed like they might never be able to move past what had happened. Bruce was starting to wonder if Selina wouldn't be better off if he left her in Italy. He wouldn't leave her with nothing, of course, he had plenty stored away to be able to support her as well as himself, but he just seemed to be constantly reminding her of things she wanted to forget.

"Selina, please, talk to me," Bruce said at last. His voice cracked ever so slightly as he spoke, and had Selina not been around him every day for six months, she might not have caught it, but there was just something there, a plea for her to talk to him, a plea that nearly broke her. If there was one thing Selina knew, it was that Bruce Wayne didn't plead with anyone, not with Bane, not with her.

When Selina said nothing, but remained still beneath his grasp, Bruce released her and slid out of bed. Selina watched him as he walked across the room wearing nothing more than a pair of pajama pants, confused as to what he was doing.

"I'm done," He said finally. He retrieved a small duffel bag from the closet and tossed this and that into it. Even in the dimly lit room, he didn't miss the way that Selina's hand was suddenly clenched on the comforter, nor the way that her chest started to rise and fall somewhat erratically. He paused, his hands on the bed, "I can't keep doing this, Selina," He said his tone low. "It's almost six months since that day I found you in New York. I can see the way you look at me every single day; I hear the way you talk to me …. We're not doing each other any favors living like this."

"Where are you going to go?" Selina asked at last, her voice choked, causing Bruce's chest to tighten. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Was Bruce truly about to leave her? She sat up and Bruce saw a tear slide down her cheek. "After all of this, you're just going to leave me again…."

She got to her feet, and Bruce saw the pain she kept hidden, the torment she held inside, the fear she never let anyone see, "Go then," She said sharply. "Never mind the fact that iI'm/i the one who has to relive the nightmare of watching you fly into the distance with that bomb hanging below the bat, or the fact that all I can see in my mind is that mushroom cloud, or if I'm not seeing that, then I'm hearing the crack of Bane breaking your back because I all but served you to him on a silver platter. Just forget about all of that, and get out."

There they were. The words Bruce had wanted Selina to speak to him. The words of what he knew to be torturing her at night. The words of her nightmares. Bruce shook his head as he tossed the duffel bag onto the floor. It wasn't much, but it was a start. He sat down on the edge of the bed and inhaled slowly.

"Selina, there isn't one thing I regret more than not being honest with you that day," Bruce said honestly, his eyes locked on hers. "I want nothing more than to take away every single thing that you feel, but you've got to let me help you; you've got to let me in." He shook his head, "I can't help you if you're not going to talk to me. I don't want to leave you, but I feel like if I stay here, all I'm going to be doing is causing you unnecessary pain, and I've caused you more than enough of that." He walked over to her then, reaching out and cupping her cheek, "I'm sorry, Selina, but unless you're going to give me _something_, anything to work with, I can only stand here and apologize until my heart stops beating, and if that's what it's going to take to fix things, then that's what I'll do."

Selina shook her head. She didn't need to hear Bruce apologize anymore. She needed so much more than that. She needed to know that he was there. She needed a constant reminder that the nightmare that haunted her truly was nothing more than that, nothing more than a simple nightmare.


End file.
